Private Dagobah Expedition

[Atlas Drake]

"The oldest and strongest emotion of sentience is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."​

The Journals of Darth Alzhared
Imperial Reclamation Service
​

"Spooky."

Captain Drake's voice echoed off the cavern walls. Maybe that was something of an understatement. Since Dagobah fell back into Jedi hands there had been several attempts to cleanse this malevolent cave of its corruption. Some of them had even been successful for a time but the rot always managed to creep back in. This was the first scientific expedition that had been sent in to document and understand rather than purify or destroy. It was a daunting project but Atlas always searched for the next frontier. The cave system had never been fully charted and he intended for his team to be the first.

"Looks like this is base camp," he announced trying to maintain a cheery disposition, "Let's set up that scanning equipment."

Hoversleds were unloaded. Energy cells were activated. Powerful mobile sensors hummed to life. Atlas had expected all the electronics to push back this sense of creeping terror but instead their lights conjured nightmarish shadows which danced across stone in an unsettling pattern. He checked the neural band wrapped around his scalp was still humming with activity. Every member of the team had been equipped with the expensive devices. It was the only way they could stand such intense darkside energies without being reduced to babbling idiots by maddening hallucinations.

"Carvings!" someone called out, "I've got carvings over here!"

"What does it say?" Atlas hunkered down next to the zabrak researcher, "I need Starchaser. Starchaser!"

Of course they weren't complete fools. Drake understood very little about this supernatural phenomenon known by mystics as the Force. He would have to rely on field experts like Jared Starchaser to fill in his considerable educational gaps. And to protect them if anything went wrong, but the starship captain tried not to think about that. In a place like this it was critical to only think happy thoughts.

"How's your ancient Sith?"

 

[Jared Starchaser]

Jared was as much his father’s kid as anyone. He was a fighter, and an explorer, primarily in that order. He knew his father strove to be the reverse, but it wasn’t what the galaxy had in writing for the Starchaser family. At least, well, not Coren and not Jared. The Jedi-Jensaarai hybrid was out in the Rim, picking up the flag of basing out of Sullust. His father had the title of General Emeritus of the Home Guard, and Jared had enlisted as an officer and Force specialist, keeping watching over that region of space, the Temple on the world, and Sullust herself. His father checked in but things were changing for the man and the Home Guard understood. The Alliance in Exile was at rest, and that had been Coren’s fight.

He deserved the retirement.

Jared had a different approach to the Force, still one of the Light Side, but he played looser with the rules than even his father. But he meant well. Lately, he had been offering his assistance to the OPA as a Hunter and a Judge, fighting back the forces of evil, be they mundane or more super natural. Today, it may have been a bit of both. He was accompanying FarStar out to Dagobah.

Stepping onto the swamp world, he could feel that damned cave echoing and reaching for him, taunting him. As he was exploring the Force around the area, he was reaching out, seeing what energies were here. Darkness, for certain, but then he heard his name. Turning, he made his way over to Atlas Drake . “Ancient Sith? What’d you find?” He had a few books to help translate it but it wasn’t something he committed to memory. Reaching for his datapad. “Passable?”

 

[Atlas Drake]

"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."​

The Journals of Darth Alzhared
Imperial Reclamation Service
​

Atlas nodded at the Judge. He shined a glowrod over the ancient carvings, and Jared Starchaser pieced together enough native words for them to run through a transcomp. It was a bulky device, sliced by Outer Rim codebreakers to bypass the Ancient Republic's prohibition on forbidden language forms. After a cascade of beeps and some digital feedback a soft chime indicated results.

>> the stars below

"Any ideas what it means?" he asked but the others simply shook their heads.

Puzzling. It was certainly less melodramatic than most Sith writings. Usually they were filled with delusions of grandeur and exultation in glory. There was little time to ponder their meaning when the entire cave began to violently shake. This part of Dagobah was not prone to tectonic activity yet Captain Drake could not deny the evidence before his very eyes. So there was more to this place than disturbing visions after all.

He could do little more than hope that they wouldn't be buried in rubble or if they were, that Jared would do something about it. What Atlas did not expect was for the ground underneath the Sith inscription to suddenly give way. He nearly tumbled down into the revealed chasm, only saved by the Judge's quick reflexes in pulling him back. Slowly the last tremors subsided and they were confronted by this new breach in the stone.

"Impossible," Atlas murmured, "This place has been scanned countless times. There's never been any indication of tunnels underneath."

 

[Jared Starchaser]

As a Starchaser, Jared had a lot to offer the galaxy. He was like his father, he was an explorer, and he was a Jedi, but he was more. He was a hunter and a Jensaarai. He didn’t have his father’s crusading blood, he was a peace keeper, and someone to protect small groups and help lead those who needed it to their own answers of safety. But it also meant he had an innate ability to find and upset the Sith.

But this one was brought upon him by Captain Drake. Jared did make the choice to head to Dagobah with the FarStar Initiative. Looking at the translated text, the one that was skipped through by the prohibition that seemed to effect even droids built in a junk heap. Running his hand through his hair, the Mirialan looked to the captain with a shake of his head. “Cryptic as always, but its only a fragment.” He shrugged it off. Looking to the Captain, he could feel the shakes.

Reaching out in the Force he was pushing a barrier against the cave to keep it opened. Pulling the Captain from the ravine, he looked at Drake. “Dagobah is a Force world, Captain. You’re not one of the Force, are you, even being out of the Outback? There was a sage who lived on this world, that stated that things were always in motion. Maybe the world itself is changing…”

“Could be that there is a cave down below that we haven’t yet reached.”

Atlas Drake